Defense-related resolutions for 2013

New Year’s Day is always a time to set goals — and with so much leftover unfinished business, this year is shaping up to be a very busy one for the military.

Permanently reversing sequestration tops the list, as Congress and the White House ran out of time to fully avert the $500 billion in automatic, across-the-board spending cuts over the next decade. Instead, Congress agreed to a two-month delay that postpones the problem, not solves it.

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Plus there’s a host of other issues on the list of New Year’s resolutions.

“I feel like we have over the last two years, the 112th Congress, been able to resolve some issues, but there are more issues to work on, and it will take a whole lot more time to resolve the remaining problems that exist,” Rep. Jeff Miller (R-Fla.), who chairs the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, told POLITICO.

Miller said one of his top priorities this year “is trying to come up with a way to stem the ever-increasing backlog of disability claims.”

“They have more than doubled under the Obama administration, and we are trying to do everything we can to see that they can do what needs to be done administratively,” he said. “They will tout the fact that they resolve about a million claims a year and that is a good thing, but when you add the fact that the backlog grows every year, the problems are not solved.”

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who is planning to join the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the new 113th Congress, told POLITICO he’s looking at a trip to the Middle East. “With a group of senators, some of the newer senators that I’m trying to get interested in national security policy,” he said.

McCain also said he hopes to work with his soon-to-be-former colleague, retiring Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), on a gun violence commission.

Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.), who sits on the House Armed Services Committee and will take the gavel of the Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations in 2013, said he has three main goals for the new year: “To make sure that appropriate treatment options are available for our combat veterans who have returned home from war and who are suffering from [post-traumatic stress disorder], to reduce U.S. troop levels in Europe. We still have 79,000 troops in Europe and the Cold War has been over with since 1991,” Coffman told POLITICO.

Last but not least: “Reduce the size of the bureaucracy within the Department of Defense,” he said.

Marion Blakey, president and CEO of the Aerospace Industries Association, said while there are plenty of immediate problems in the defense world, “we have a lot of work to do to ensure the long-term health of our industry.”

AIA’s to-do list for the new year, Blakey said, includes implementation of the Next Generation Air Transportation System, export control reform, extension of the research and development tax credit, focused investment in defense procurement and research and development, and help advance on NASA’s human space-exploration strategy.

Readers' Comments (1)

When one finally is able to read the bills Obama is pushing for, it's clear that those of us who cannot afford a lobbyist are screwed. Those with lobbyists get a pass , those without, well, tough luck.

The swamp has not been drained as promised - it has actually grown much, much larger.